Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday December 30, 2010 @02:40AM
from the because-they-can dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "The University of Nottingham's Nanotechnology Center decided to help Professor of chemistry, Martyn Poliakoff celebrate his special day by 'etching' a copy of a Periodic Table of Elements onto a single strand of the scientist's hair using a 'very sophisticated' electron ion beam microscope. The microscope creates a very fine etching of the periodic table only a few microns across by shooting a 'focused ion beam' of gallium ions at the hair. The technology here is nothing revolutionary, but it is inspiring to see a grown man get so giddy with the prospect of seeing science in action."

He taught me at undergraduate level - Atomic and Molecular Structure, and is very well known around the university. He's the brother of film director Stephen Poliakoff, and is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

He's also a huge nerd, and has an enormous collection of dog toys (he has no dog) that he uses in his lectures, and his office is full of plastic water bottles from all over the world that he collects "pretty much by accident" - a white lie about a hobby that turned into a real hobby.

The team from the Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Centre also entered the festive spirit and took advantage of the wintry weather by engraving the words 'Merry Christmas' onto a snowflake. Philip Moriarty, professor of physics, said: 'Although writing on a snowflake is on one hand a bit of seasonal fun, it's also a neat demonstration of the powerful capabilities of the tools that scientists use in the lab on a day-to-day basis.'

What everyone has missed from this particular version of the story is that Nottin

The team from the Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Centre also entered the festive spirit and took advantage of the wintry weather by engraving the words 'Merry Christmas' onto a snowflake.

Philip Moriarty, professor of physics, said: 'Although writing on a snowflake is on one hand a bit of seasonal fun, it's also a neat demonstration of the powerful capabilities of the tools that scientists use in the lab on a day-to-day basis.'

What has been missed from this article is that Nottingham University has a *Profes

It's hard to give a thoughtful gift. The guys at the Nanotechnology Center have done a very excellent job at a tough task. While it doesn't necessarily advance mankind, it made one person's day that much better. I applaud this effort.

A more impressive feat would be rewriting Tom Lehrer's elements song to accomodate all the new elements of which the news has come to Harvard. Ununseptium doesn't have the lyrical qualities of "Indium" and "Gallium".

On the other hand it would have been even cooler if they stuck a few atoms of each element from the periodic table onto his hair in the right order as well. Bonus points for doing it while the hair is still on his head. More bonus points for doing it to every hair on his head. Extra super bonus points for trying to go through TSA at a local airport with that kind of hair to see what would happen, would they detect things like uranium?

The amount of Polonium 110 used to kill Alexander Litvenenko was about 10 micrograms, which is significantly more than a single atom, and no airport detector is going to pick that up, especially if it's inside a container (it's an alpha emitter only).

More amusing was the "outrage" on talk radio shows here from members of the public (and the host himself) about why there weren't procedures and detectors in place to pick this sort of thing up at airports to prevent it happe

so, and with all the hair, put a bunch of atoms on each hair (a bunch, which would be readable with that microscope they used, thus at micron level, with each element being 4 microns across (4/1000000 of a meter across), place a table like that on each hair, you have quite a few. You can go ahead and calculate how many hairs the guy has and how many 4 micron Uraniums and Thoriums and Plutoniums and Americiums he would have.